Page 4 of Scary & Bright

The woman rolled her eyes and waved her hand to dismiss my offer. “Thanks, but no thanks. Do you think you could just check in the back? The website says you have one more of these adment calendars.”

I could feel the irritation prickling at my skin as I watched the storefront across the mall from mine pull their own gate down, signaling their closure for the evening. Of course she wanted me to check the back.

“I could check in the back, but I am absolutely certain we are sold out of what you’re looking for,” I responded with the same chirping cheerfulness I tried to apply to all of my troublesome guests. “Now I have to remind you that we are about to close up for the night, so if there’s nothing else I can do for you—”

“Could you just check?” the woman insisted, cutting me off.

I could hear sirens going off in my head, and if I were anywhere else, I would have snapped at this woman to please get a grip. The sound of her gum smacking between her teeth was like nails on a chalkboard, and she rudely brought her phone to her face and began flicking the screen upward with the ball of her extra-long nailed, perfectly manicured finger. Clearly, she was not going to be leaving or even moving until I did my due diligence and checked the back for something I knew for a fact would not be there.

“Sure can!” I announced as I spun around and shoved through the swinging door that led to our meager stock room. Inside, there was barely room to raise my arms, and there was nothing interesting to see except some leftover Thanksgiving-themed merchandise that we couldn’t sell even after dropping the clearance price three times. I stood there for a moment, giving the woman the illusion that I was searching extra hard for her special request, but in reality, I was just taking a few deep breaths and trying to remind myself that this was not a big deal. It was just the way of the world of holiday retail.

I counted to “thirty Mississippi” in my head before returning to the counter, where the woman was still playing on her phone, oblivious to the world around her.

“Yeah, unfortunately, it’s like I said,” I began with a tone that I hoped sounded something like sympathy. “We are entirely sold—”

“Well, does any other store around here have them in stock?” she snapped, cutting me off again.

In my anger, I couldn’t help but focus on the smudge of red lipstick smeared on the corner of one of her professionally bleached teeth when she shot me her own frustrated smile. I was satisfied to see that the expression showed off the crow’s feet that she clearly tried and failed to Botox away.

“They’ve been our top seller this season. They’re very popular,” I began after pausing to be sure she had gotten all of her words out before I tried to speak again. “So, I could look for you, but I’m afraid there’s no guarantee that the item will still be there upon your arrival.”

The closest Peace Lily storefront to ours was a healthy twenty minutes away, with no traffic. I wasn’t sure what sort of Secret Santa thing her work was operating, but it felt like a lot of effort for something so stupid.

“They won’t hold it for me?” she asked with an obvious roll of her eyes, shifting her weight to her other hip.

“I’m afraid the other stores are likely already closed up for the evening.” I sighed, looking at the clock, which reminded me that I was supposed to be closed five minutes ago. I went ahead and searched the item in our computer system, praying that they would all be out of stock as well, so I could at least put an end to her incessant nagging. But of course—there was one left. I was perfectly aware that she could have very well looked up this information on her phone, but there was no reasoning with a person who had a retail employee deadly focused in their scope.

I took a deep breath. “Well, the system says the store in the Sherwood Square Shopping Center has one left, if you’re familiar with that area. You could give them a call in the morning and see if they’ve still got it and save yourself the drive!”

“You seriously can’t call them for me?” she asked, her eyes staring me down as if she were challenging me to tell her no.

This was where I was lucky enough to have corporate policy to blame for my letting her down. Peace Lily did have a “no answering the phones after closing” system in place. After hours, a robot voice would announce the store hours and apologize for missing their call, and it was entirely automated. All the store managers and leaders in the region had each other's cell numbers for communication reasons, and in the case of a true emergency, there was a series of numbers we could punch into the keypad to force the store line to ring on the opposite end.

But, of course, she didn’t need to know that.

“Ma’am, the store is closed for the evening,” I explained. Again. “Even if I were to call, nobody would answer. There’s an answering service in place.”

“Really?” she asked, popping her gum in her mouth. “Just call them and see if they answer. They’re probably still in the building closing up. Just call them.” Her eyes shot back down to her phone, and the sound of her nails tapping the screen was enough to send me over the edge.

Just call them, a mocking voice in my head repeated, sending fire into my veins. At this point, I was ready to take the phone off the receiver and smack her over the head with it.

Still, I picked up the phone and dialed the number to our closest neighboring store. Just for giggles, I put the phone on speaker so she could hear with her own ears that there was, in fact, an answering service in place. Her eyes didn’t even lift in acknowledgment.

“Well, as you can see, there’s not much else we can do about your calendar tonight,” I mused, setting the phone back down in its cradle. “You’ll just have to give them a call in the morning to inquire about your purchase.”

The woman opened up her oversized designer purse and dropped her phone into it, and I could feel her eyes rest on my nametag. This was the unruly customer’s signature move, and I was more than prepared for what would come next.

“That’s fine… Holly.” She read my name as if it were something toxic. Like it was a bad word she was forbidden to say. “I’ll just call them in the morning and see if they have it.” Her smile flashed again, complete with that distracting smudge of red on the edge of her tooth.

Then, astoundingly, she began to wander around the store as if it were the middle of the day. I wasn’t even sure what to say or how to approach this because I was so unbelievably dumbstruck at the audacity of this woman. She had all the time in the world to check out the fragrances, stupid little carved soaps, and stupid little beeswax candles while I was answering her thousand questions. But no. She waited until I was already run ragged with her nonsense to begin to question if she might actually want something else.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we are trying to close up for the night,” I reminded her. Again. My blood was boiling, and my friendly retail facade was beginning to melt away by the moment.

The woman ignored me. At this point, she was very lucky there was not only store policy in place allowing guests to browse wares until fifteen minutes after close, assuming they were already in the store, and legalities in place preventing me from grabbing her by her hoop earrings and pulling her out of the store like a wild bull. The thought had crossed my mind more than once during our less-than-pleasant interactions.

Deciding I was being too passive by idly hanging out behind the counter, waiting for her to leave, I left the comfort of the cash register, moved to the store's entrance, and wrapped one hand around the chain pull that would bring the gate down. Perhaps, I thought, if I made things feel particularly awkward, she would catch the hint and be on her way.

“You all must have been very busy today,” the woman said with a holier-than-thou inflection on her tongue. “So many things are just… out of stock, it seems.”